Jan Wierix (1549–1615), Posthumous Portrait of Hieronymus Cock (1517/18–1570), 1572, Copperplate engraving, from ‘Pictorum aliquot celebrium Germaniae inferioris effigies’, 31.5 cm × 19.5 cm, second state impression, Published by his widow, Volcxken Diericx (1525–1600) in Antwerp
This posthumous portrait of Hieronymus Cock (1517/18–1570), created two years after his death, commemorates one of the key figures in the visual culture of sixteenth-century Northern Europe. As a publisher, running his Antwerp press workshop ‘Aux Quatre Vents’, Cock and his wife played a central role in the iconographic revolution of the later Renaissance by disseminating the compositions of Italian masters such as Raphael, Michelangelo, and Bronzino, alongside leading Netherlandish artists. Their prints made the visual language of the High Renaissance accessible to new audiences across Europe and helped shape the artistic vocabulary of subsequent generations.
The engraving depicts Cock pointing to a skull—an emblem of mortality and a traditional attribute of St Jerome, his namesake. The image’s contemplative tone is deepened by Latin epigram by the humanist Dominicus Lampsonius (1532–1599), which underscores the tension between portraiture and death, presence and absence. The poem reads:
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Am I deceived? Or is it truly your face, Hieronymus?
That the artist shaped only after your death?
There’s something faded, inert in this image—
Even the eyes of the unlearned can feel its absence.
Alas! Your skull speaks more loudly than all else,
Lifted in your left hand as an eternal gesture:
These men came before you, Cock, and you followed—
Now you summon them to join you in death.
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After Cock’s death in 1570, his wife continued the press for a further thirty years. Nearly 2,000 prints were issued under their imprint, and Antwerp rose to prominence as a centre of European printmaking. This portrait, with its sombre tone and philosophical depth, mirrors Cock’s life’s work: the dissemination of visual culture across space and time, and the enduring dialogue between art and mortality.